High School Scrapbook: Jenelle Deatherage

Dealing with disappointment

Jenelle Deatherage has had some disappointing near-misses during her running career, including a fourth place in the 2004 Olympic Trials 1,500, but it’s a bad race from high school that still motivates her to improve.

"I’m still feeling the pain from my flop in the state cross country meet my senior year," she says. After winning the race as a junior, Deatherage "bombed" and finished in the mid-30s. "It was devastating," she recalls. "I thought my world was going to end. Some people even told me to give up running." Fortunately, she ignored that advice, and used the race as motivation for a career that’s extended well beyond college. "I realized what running meant to me, and that one bad race isn’t enough to make you give that up," she says.

Just missing the Olympic team in 2004 also motivates her, but in a different way. "Going into the meet, I didn’t really expect to be in the top three, but afterward I realized how close I’d come. You can never underestimate how important it is to go into a race with a positive attitude, the feeling that you’ve got just as good a chance to win as anyone."